International News

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How far did The Economist go to get a hoverboarding priest into its lofty pages?

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OK, so who out there in cyberspace who wasn't tempted to write a post about the Catholic priest in the Philippines who rode you know what around in the center aisle of the church? Who could resist the chance to write a headline like, oh, "Bishop suspends hoverboarding priest." I mean, the bishop could have "left him hanging" or something like that, as well.

It's one thing, I guess to write a basic news story about this strange case. Take for example the basic Religion News Service piece that started like this:

(RNS) Hoverboards earned a reputation as maybe the most dangerous gift for kids this holiday season, given their penchant for catching fire and inducing nasty spills.
But they’re apparently also perilous for Catholic priests who get it into their heads it might be a good idea to use one during Christmas Eve Mass — while congregants are shooting video on their smartphones.

I thought that was that. Alas, there was allegedly more to say on this case and by The Economist, no less.

As former GetReligionista Mark Kellner wrote, in a note pointing us toward this most bizarre piece, "$5, or a candy bar, to the first person who can connect this to reality. Seems to me like an awfully long stretch to work in the priest-on-a-hoverboard."

Amen to that sentiment. You can feel the stretching start right in the epic double-decker headline:


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Hey Washington Post: Now it's time for Christmas rites in the Church of the Nativity

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Now it's time to say "Merry Christmas!" to worshipers gathered in Bethlehem's ancient Church of the Nativity.

That really isn't big news. So why mention it? Let's back up a week or so.

The bottom line: I didn't hear about an international incident (or an ecumenical breakthrough, depending on one's point of view) at the Church of the Nativity back on the 25th of December. Did you?

You may recall that this was when The Washington Post said that a Catholic bishop -- the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem -- was going to be celebrating Mass at the Orthodox altar in the ancient Orthodox basilica.

Honest. That's what the story said and I wrote GetReligion posts about this error here and here. That Post story is still online, without a correction. The key error of fact is contained in this passage:

There will be a Christmas Eve Mass at the Church of the Nativity, the 1,700-year-old basilica built above the grotto where tradition says Jesus was born and visited by Bethlehem shepherds.

That Christmas midnight Mass, as I stressed, was actually held in the newer, in a Holy Land frame of reference, Catholic sanctuary -- the Church of St. Catherine -- that is located next to the much older Church of the Nativity. That's the Orthodox sanctuary that contains a high altar built directly over the grotto containing the traditional site of the birth of Jesus.

As I noted in my second post: "Catholic prelates lead Catholic rites at Catholic altars." In practice, that looks like this:


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Some empathy, please, as New York Times Jerusalem chief bids adieu

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Some empathy, please, as New York Times Jerusalem chief bids adieu

About a month ago I wrote a post on the buzz developing around the changing of the guard at the Jerusalem bureau of The New York Times. I noted then that Times coverage of the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about as closely watched -- and unsparingly critiqued -- as is any  produced by American journalism.

For the bureau chief, the job is a near guaranteed ulcer-producer. Still, the position is coveted by the Times' most ambitious, most skilled and toughest reporters. In the context of that super-competitive newsroom, that's saying something.

My early December post was pegged to the departure of Jodi Rudoren, who is leaving Jerusalem after four years. No replacement has been officially named as of this writing, but check out my earlier post if you're interest in the scuttlebutt about who that may be.

My return to the subject is prompted by a exit interview Rudoren gave to The Jerusalem Post, Israel's leading right-of-center and oldest English-language newspaper. Click here to read the entire exit interview published in the newspaper's weekend magazine.

It's well-worth your time as a primer on what it takes to cover a highly complex, super-important international conflict while under a microscope.

How does one prepares for such an assignment? How do you deal, just about daily, with angry, highly partisan readers who feel their side has been wronged? How do time and space constraints work against properly contextualizing daily events when one has decades of bloody conflict from which to draw?


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Flashback 2015: New Religion News Service editor goes global (PBS looks to 2016)

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So we know how the Religion Newswriters Association poll viewed the Top 10 news stories of the year (commentary here and "Crossroads" podcast here). The original RNA press release is right here. So what did other mainstream religion-news outlets have to say?

I will let veteran reporter Kim Lawton and a panel of experts at the PBS Religion & Ethics Newsweekly broadcast speak for themselves. The video is up top and the transcript is here.

So how does the broadcast open? Well, it's about 2015, so I'm afraid that we are talking ISIS, terrorism, refugees and Donald Trump. And then Pope Francis.

Over at Religion News Service, Jerome Socolovsky -- the wire service's the new editor -- offered a list of what he billed as the "most consequential religion stories of the past year."

I think that is "consequential" in the sense of "important or significant," as opposed to "self-important; conceited." All I know is that this is a very thoughtful and well-developed list and I recommend it highly, especially if you are interested in the global angle on religion news over the past year. In particular, I thought the wording on the No. 1 item is especially strong:

ISIS and the lure of the apocalypse

We had already been introduced to the unspeakable cruelty of this group called the Islamic State, or Daesh in Arabic. And it continued this year: Coptic Christians were slaughtered on a Libyan beach in an act shown to the world in high-definition video.


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Flashback 2015: Revealing Top 10 lists from Religion Dispatches and Patheos Evangelical

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So far, your GetReligionistas have shared quite a few Top 10 story lists marking the end of the year -- like here, here, here and here, with an attached podcast here. These have ranged from the Religion Newswriters Association list to that of the Associated Press. I found it interesting (commentary here) that the top AP story -- period, as in the top story in the whole world -- was a religion news story, but that wasn't the top story in the RNA poll. Go figure.

Obviously, I find these lists fascinating, in part because they show us (a) just how complex the world of religion news really is and (b) the unique points of view (which can, in some cases become biases) that affect how scribes and editors see the world of religion news. There is much to learn in these lists, both for news professionals and news consumers.

In the next couple of days I will be posting a number of additional lists covering religion news in 2015, from a variety of different points of view.

Please let me know if I missed one or two that you would like to see posted.

Let's start with the Religion Dispatches list of the "Ten Religion Stores That Went (Mostly) Missing in 2015." The whole idea here, of course, is that these are stories that, from the point of view of Peter Laarman, SHOULD have received more coverage in the past year.

Read them all. But here are a few that caught my eye:

2. The struggle of the Black Church to come to terms with #BlackLivesMatter.
In some cities there has been visible conflict between Old Guard pastors (many of whom still identify with the 20th century civil rights movement) and the New Guard of fearless youth, many of whom are not shy about showing contempt for the pastors.


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Reuters offers strong take on ISIS fatwa on sex slaves (Daily Beast attempts to punt)

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If you were picking the top religion news story of 2015 and you were looking at the whole world -- as opposed to, let's say, culture wars in the United States -- then it was hard to avoid the mayhem unleashed by the Islamic State.

That was certainly my take, as I stressed in last week's "Crossroads" podcast.

That was, apparently, how the Associated Press saw 2015 as well. This was the year that ISIS touched lives and headlines all over the world.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The far-flung attacks claimed by Islamic State militants and the intensifying global effort to crush them added up to a grim, gripping yearlong saga that was voted the top news story of 2015, according to The Associated Press' annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors.
The No. 2 story was the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that led to legalization of same-sex marriage in all 50 states. But several of the other stories among the Top 10 reflected the impact of the Islamic State, while another group of major stories related to the series of mass shootings in the United States.

One of the big ISIS questions, frequently discussed here at GetReligion, is this: What drives this violent and radical movement? When ISIS leaders describe the "why" in the "who, what, when, where, why and how" of their story, what do they talk about? Are they driven by "ideology," "theology" or a theocratic ideology built on a foundation of their own twisted take on Islamic theology?

To understand ISIS journalists have to deal with the religion component in these stories. We have to understand what ISIS is saying about Islam and why many Muslims agree with them, while many more fiercely disagree.

This brings me to that Reuters exclusive again about ISIS and its -- literally -- theology shaping the treatment of sexual slaves. This was strong stuff and, once again, the key was that members of the Reuters team actually read what ISIS leaders were saying about their own work. The headline: "Exclusive -- Islamic State ruling aims to settle who can have sex with female slaves."

In addition to the word "theology" in the lede, the key word used in this piece -- multiple times -- is "fatwa."


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One more time: Which church is above the traditional site of the birth of Jesus?

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Trust me, I know that I just dealt with this issue in a pre-Christmas post about an error in a Bethlehem dateline story in The Washington Post.

It appears that there is still confusion, out there in major newsrooms, about which church is which on Manger Square in Bethlehem. That earlier Post advance report -- which has not been corrected -- stated:

There will be a Christmas Eve Mass at the Church of the Nativity, the 1,700-year-old basilica built above the grotto where tradition says Jesus was born and visited by Bethlehem shepherds.

Alas, the Associated Press story covering Christmas events in Bethlehem -- the story that will be read in the vast majority of American newspapers -- has repeated the same error that was in the Post report. Read carefully and see if you spot the overlap:

Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal led a procession from his Jerusalem headquarters into Bethlehem, passing through a military checkpoint and past Israel's concrete separation barrier, which surrounds much of the town. ...
Twal led worshippers in a Midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity, built atop the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.
In his homily, Twal expressed sympathy for the plight of Palestinians, Syrian refugees and "victims of all forms of terrorism everywhere," according to a transcript issued by his office. He wished "all inhabitants of the Holy Land" a happy and healthy new year.

Yes, the Post reference was more specific -- making the error more obvious.

Now, let's follow the logic here.


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Top 10 religion stories for 2015: How would Pope Francis have voted?

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No doubt about it, journalists really love Pope Francis. In many cases, they love the version of this pope that they have created through misquotes, partial quotes and by ignoring much of what he has to say. Hey, but who am I to judge?

Pope Francis had a lot to say during 2015 and, frankly, I thought that most of it was somewhat predictable, in terms of what we already knew about him. His sermons and addresses during the visit to Acela land in the media-rich American Northeast had lots of substance, but very few surprises.

So here is my question: Would Pope Francis think that he was the world's most important news story in 2015? I think not.

If you were looking for remarks by Francis that received little coverage, consider his steady stream of remarks about the persecution of religious minorities worldwide -- especially Christians in the Middle East. In the following quotes, drawn from a July sermon in a Mass with Eastern Catholics, he even comments on how the powerful have been ignoring this truly historic massacre:

“Dear brothers and sisters, there is no Christianity without persecution. Remember the last of the Beatitudes: when they bring you into the synagogues, and persecute you, revile you, this is the fate of a Christian. Today too, this happens before the whole world, with the complicit silence of many powerful leaders who could stop it. We are facing this Christian fate: go on the same path of Jesus.”
The Holy Father also remembered the broader persecution of Christians in the present day. “We now, in the newspapers, hear the horror of what some terrorist groups do, who slit the throats of people just because [their victims] are Christians. We think of the Egyptian martyrs, recently, on the Libyan coast, who were slaughtered while pronouncing the name of Jesus.”

During this week's "Crossroads" podcast, host Todd Wilken and I -- as is our end-of-the-year norm -- worked out way through the Religion Newswriters Association poll to pick the Top 10 religion-beat stories. Click here to tune that in.


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Washington Post covers first of Bethlehem's two (yes, two) Christmas celebrations

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Let's settle one issue first. I am well aware that for most of the world's Christians, Christmas is celebrated on the 25th day of December. The season then continues for the next 12 days, but that's another story (as the one and only M.Z. Hemingway reminds us).

However, there are millions of Eastern Orthodox Christians located in strategic places -- think Egypt, Russia, the Slavic countries -- who celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January. Click here to see a helpful map at The Telegraph offering the details. (Clarification from a reader: Most parishes in Greece now use the 25th of December, but there are old-calendar parishes there, too. The map is inaccurate on that point.)

Why is this? Well churches in the West use the calendar proposed by Pope Gregory in 1582. Most of the world's Orthodox churches remain on the Julian calendar, which dates back to 45 B.C. (It does confuse things a bit that, in the United States, most Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on December 25 -- but stay on the old calendar for Pascha, which is the Orthodox name for Easter).

I needed to remind readers about these basic facts -- which are known to all experienced religion-beat writers -- because this is the time when news organizations start covering one of the season's basic stories, which is the sad state of Christmas in the city of Bethlehem itself, located on the tense West Bank.

The headline on the Washington Post piece is typical: "Violence makes for a somber Christmas in Bethlehem this year." Tragically, you could use that headline almost every year and it would be accurate.

The story gets the politics of this story right, of course. The problem -- surprise -- is that key religious facts are missing or are messed up. Here is how the story starts out:

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- The city celebrated as the birthplace of Jesus is usually filled with parades and parties this time of year. There are fireworks, carolers, feasts. Revelers drink a little wine. They dance.
This year? It’s not exactly like Christmas was canceled, but it is a somber, dutiful affair.


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